May 15, 2012

Nakba anniversary message

On
this 64th anniversary of the Nakba we mourn the ethnic cleansing that
began in 1948 and that continues today with silent transfer, home demolitions,
land confiscation and more. But we also celebrate
an amazing resilience and success of the Palestinian endogenous people against
incredible odds:

-We
just celebrated the success of a hunger strike by over 1600 political prisoners
despite attempts to stifle the story in Zionist dominated Western media. They
succeeded in achieving a part of their basic rights including receiving family
visits and ending solitary confinement.

-We
are 11.5 million people and while most of us are refugees and displaced people,
we remain steadfast and hopeful and connected.
Thanks to persistence and now the internet and modern communications,
even the feeble attempts to isolate us from each other failed. Thousands of Palestinians still go to their main
city of Jerusalem without Israeli permission.
Thousands connect across the Green line to the areas occupied since
1948.

-We
are still the most educated people in the Middle East with the highest per
capita of postgraduates.

-We
now have 12 universities inside the occupied Palestinan territories. On Saturday we held the second biomedical
research symposium in Bethlehem showing scientific work rivaling that done in
countries with a strong tradition of research.
This is miraculous considering the conditions under occupation.

-We
are still the people who helped develop the Arab world and even remind it of
its unity and common destiny. But more
than that, our resistance shielded fellow Arabs from the original plans of
Zionists for an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates. We are still the main obstacle to the victory
of the racist Zionist project.

-We
have an amazing history of 130 years of struggle against the most well-financed,
most-organized, most-supported (by Zionists and their Western backers) colonial
project in human history.

-
We have the fastest growing boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement
in anti-colonial struggles. In less than
7 years we accomplished far more than what was accomplished with BDS in any
other place (including in 25 years in South Africa).

-Palestine
is still the place where people of different religions lived together in the same
neighborhod unsegregated until European Zionists came and recreated ghettos for
Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) and one large ghetto for Jews called
Israel coexist in harmony. Church bells
and the call of the Muezzin to prayer still penetrate deep in our souls despite
all the Zionist attempts to silence them (e.g. the ethnic cleansing and
destruction of 530 villages and towns).

- We
educate our children that racism and notions of choseness are wrong and they
grow to believe that we can still have the new Palestine that will be like our
old Palestine: multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural and beautiful.

- Palestinians
inspired activists around the world. Polls show great sympathy for our
cause among average people. Palestine is
now cause celebre among those struggling against oppression. Even Nelson
Mandela said that South Africa will not be fully free until Palestine is free.
According to polls, a majority in Western Europe correctly view
Israel and the US as the two greatest threats to world peace. Thousands of
internationals joined us in the struggle locally. Israel has become so paranoid about any
solidarity visits and in the process exposed its apartheid racist nature.

We
are grateful to be participants in shaping a better future for all. I am 100% sure that our Nakba will end,
refugees will return, freedom and equality will happen, and Israelis will also be
liberated from being oppressors and colonizers and become integrated into the fabric
of the new and better Palestine. We can
then become a "light unto the peoples."

----------------------------

Died:
Vidal Sassoon who volunteered for and fought in the Israeli army during
the ethnic cleansing in 1948 (the largest since WWII). His "beauty"
empire participated (and continues) in the financing of the ugly Zionist crimes
against humanity.

Podcast
Radio interview: Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem and Birzeit
Universities, author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: a History of Hope and
Empowerment. - Around 2000 Palestinian prisoners, out of desperation, are
on hunger strike. Some are near death. Yet western media are silent. Many
prisoners have been arrested and re-arrested, under "Administrative Detention",
i.e., no charges and no trials

Lest
we forget: Palestinian Refugees: Right to Return and Repatriation. Chapter 4
from Sharing The Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian
Struggle" . http://www.qumsiyeh.org/chapter4/

Two
chapters from a new book titled "The Case For Sanctions Against
Israel"

See
this link to an al-Jazeera documentary about the theft of books from
Palestinian homes and libraries during the 1948 war. It is a
very tragic story with many of the books looted from Khalil al-Sakakini's
library and others, then kept at the Israeli national library. There is an
opening poem by Sakakini dedicated to his stolen books http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/05/20125915313256768.html

About Me

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem University (BU) and directs the BU's cytogenetics laboratory and the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability in occupied Palestine. He also taught at Birzeit and Al-Quds Universities. He is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle", “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment”, "Mammals of the Holy Land", and "The Bats of Egypt." He formerly served on the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People in Beit Sahour and Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Society at Aida Refugee Camp.